What if Religion and Education changed places in India?

With religion getting much more attention than needed and education getting way less than it deserves, India is a funny place to be in these times. However, it makes an interesting study as to what would have happened if the yin and yang of logic and divine would change their place. Moral Science would become more of science and Vedic Mathematics would encapsulate less of Mathematics than the Vedas.

In that alternate universe, the child is born in the family of Maths or Geography. However, if he wishes the Constitution allows him full right to adopt Accounts or Sanskrit as his faith. And at the same time, he is taught all the tenets of Hinduism, Islam, Christianity and so on in his school and when he grows up, he chooses which religion he would major in. He even has the option to take up another religion has his minor! The best of both worlds, which though far-fetched, actually gives us a nice thing to think upon. Can one actually follow two or more religions?

It would open up the otherwise tabooed subject of religion for greater discussion and inferences. Nobel Prize would be given to discover new texts or providing entirely new interpretations of sacred texts. Educational institutes of different religion would be started by different religions and students would enroll to get a greater understanding of humanism. Hope that’s the actual end of all the religion. Hope even in the alternate universe, the aim of education remains the same: to search for the truth; that truth being to be a better human.

The religious Gurus might actually become Gurus and lead people to salvation. Fundamentalism is, but a small part of religion. And it is not even the right part. It would also make people more tolerant about religion and more accepting of different views. No one would be in a rush to assert one religion is right and other one is wrong, for we don’t see engineers mocking CAs. (We don’t. Do we? I believe everyone respects others profession)

Rather than going one-up, people would rather indentify the part that is lacking in their religion. An imaginary discussion among friends well in their respective courses would be something like this:

Boy 1: “Guys, you have it easy. We have 33 crore subjects with separate HODs and every subject is specialized. From Solar power (Surya) to meteorology (Indra) to Wind power generation and studies on hurricanes and tornados (Vaayu). And everyone wants us to study their subject and says that theirs is the most important subject.”

Boy 2: “Haah! Still you have variety. We have only one faculty and it seems that he is always round the corner. We haven’t seen him, but the School Captain says he is all powerful and omnipresent.”

Boy 3: “Yaar…my faculty said he was going on leave and we thought we could have those classes as free periods but he returned after three days. And seniors say that this happens every year. The good thing: he brought beautifully cooked eggs with him.”

Boy 4: “Yaar main to usey khoj raha hu jisne kaha tha ye religion le lo. Scope achchha hai!”

Caricaturists would be a welcome addition to the fold as people would be more than willing to laugh at their own shortcomings. Tags like Internet Hindu would become something similar to the present Remote Educationist. Every year India Today would publish Best Religion to get Employed, Top Institutes providing Deepest Insight and then segregate it on the basis of different religions based on their weird algorithm which they publish every year, but hardly ever being able to make the reader understand.

Also the clothing would change from the drab monochrome robes to funky outfits. Sweatshirts of Institute of Hindu Studies: Class of 2014, tees of Academy of Islamic Banking: Batch of 2015, bandanas of Sikh School of Social Service and the likes would be sported by the students. Probably students from different religion would come together to solve global problems than the present situation of working in isolation. Probably more money would be pooled for humanitarian causes than erecting statues of gold and silver. Probably pursuit of religion would actually lead to peace.

However, on the other side, studies like engineering and accountancy and management would work in isolation to maintain their purity and shun any adverse findings which are against the set notions. Subjects would always be at loggerheads and try to prove their tenets are what make the world go around the sun. Geography! You win this debate...but wait! Physics asserted that it’s gravity what makes it do so. Now Chemistry is asserting that everything is made up of atoms and without it we all will be zero. Cue: Subjectal Riots. How can one subject say it is better than the other? The majority population wants everyone to be a Doctor or an Engineer. The seculars come in defense of Arts papers. Sala Commerce ko yaha bhi koi nahi poochhta!

No one would dare comment on the mass recruitment done by IT companies, neither would they care when students are given pink slips in hordes. Sectoral subjects would demand their own ministry in the Parliament and debates would be based on Why Senior CAs don’t allow juniors to Succeed? Why are the lower rankers discriminated against? Ludicrous comments like, ‘the girl was dressed in jeans, hence she was taught Astronomy’ would become normal.  Movies like Interstellar would invite ban from a fringe group of followers of Astrology, saying that it insults their beliefs.

The demographic makeup would also be determined by the subjects followed by the people. The Mechanical Engineering guys would be those who wish to remain celibate. For they even now, rarely get to meet a girl in their classes. The Forestry guys would, for sure, be animist with the social sector and the financial sector luring them to join their ranks. The Fashion Designing sect would be the most fluidic of all, accepting new changes and new ideas with glee and including them in their ‘teachings’.

Someone would go to far-flung places and come back and make a new subject with his own logic. Like Newton’s Law of Gravity inspired a cult following among the masses, someone would bring his own principles and there would be enough people not getting adequate answers from the current subjects who would turn to these new Gurus, forgetting that the aim of any religion/ subject is to find answers to What, Why, When and How of anything and to be substantiated by facts and not just stand by hollow hypotheses.

Will the world be a better place if this interchange happens? Maybe. Maybe Not.

But can the world be a better place in its existing design? Definitely yes.

So what’s stopping it from becoming a better place? Probably the unwillingness to understand the truth and living life on a lighter note.